TIG Project Evaluation Plan: Specifying Goals

A TIG evaluation plan should contain a single goal statement.  The statement:

  • Specifies a project’s broad and long term intended results for (or impact on) a specified target population.
  • Identifies the technology (technologies) or technology system(s) that the grantee proposes to develop.
  • Identifies how the system will increase the quality or quantity of client services and/or enhance the grantee’s operational effectiveness and efficiency.

Examples of Project Goal Statements

  • Enhance the delivery of the state’s pro bono services by using web-based technologies to increase the quantity and quality of resource materials and training available to volunteer attorneys.
  • Use A2J author and HotDocs to create guided interviews and court form templates that improve the ability of low income people to easily, effectively and efficiently produce and file court forms without the assistance of an attorney. 
  • Increase low income person’s access to legal information and enhance the quality of services they receive by incorporating YouTube streaming video technologies into the statewide website.
  • Increase access to justice for low income people by enabling clients to use mobile devices to access legal information and resources on the statewide website. 

Goals vs. Objectives

Goals and objectives are similar in that they both articulate what project managers hope to achieve. However, there are important distinctions between them.

Goals should specify a project's broad and long term intended results for (or impact on) a specified target population. Objectives are more specific, concrete, short-term and measurable; they identify the project's specific “deliverables” and constitute the measures managers use to assess a project's achievements.

In relative terms:

  • Goals are broad; objectives are narrow and specific
  • Goals are long-term; objectives are short term
  • Goals are abstract; objectives are concrete
  • Goals are general intentions; objectives are precise.
  • Goals are difficult to quantify; objectives are measurable